It happened with the fires. Yeah, you all know Southern California burns to the ground each summer, but this was my first encounter with the amber haze that blocked the sun, and the fallen ash that covered everything from my dorm room to the entirety of the ocean I surfed in every day. Just sitting in it, my legs would turn black as remnants from the six+ fires burning in close proximity fell to the water and gently drifted down. It’s a sad state of being where our very existence relies on a contradiction of the natural course of things.